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Pinterest, the company whose trademark social pinboard allows
users to display images they find appealing, has decided it's
time to work toward profitability. "A lot of last year was
keeping up with growth [and] the big change with touch-screen
devices," founder Ben Silbermann said. "[This year], we're
building foundations to monetize." What are it's plans? Pinterest
is getting ready to introduce paid advertising. And it is
studying how Pinterest users convert into online shoppers, so
that it can eventually take a percentage of brands' sales
revenue.

Pinterest has enjoyed explosive growth over the past year, with
total user visits to its website increasing to 48 million last
December, up from 9 million the previous December. In the same
period, Pinterest's staff grew from 20 to 100. Pinterest has
raised $140 million in venture capital so far, and might seek
more -- at a $2.5 billion valuation. --
Wall Street Journal

Twitter now more searchable.
If you've noticed a change in the search function of your Twitter
mobile app, you're not alone. The social network has changed
search so that user accounts to follow and relevant tweets now
appear together in search results. Previously, users had to
decide in advance which type of results they would like to see.
The change not only helps users, it also opens up more search
inventory against which Twitter can sell Promoted Tweets -- its
most effective ad product for generating clickthroughs.
-- Business Insider

Tumblr adds real-time notifications.
Tumblr became a little bit more like Facebook recently when it
began rolling out real-time notifications to its dashboard. The
look of it should be familiar to many users -- it resembles
Facebook's sidebar ticker that shows the minute-by-minute
activity of friends and pages you've liked. The new Tumblr
dashboard could be a way to further connect users with each
other, though you can disable the live updates if you don't care
for them. -- TechCrunch

Twitter gets into TV analytics.
Twitter made its largest acquisition when it purchased social TV
analytics firm Bluefin Labs this week. Bluefin provides analysis
for brands, advertising agencies and TV networks, enabling them
to track social engagement with TV shows and ad spots, and use
this information to drive future activity. This could be the
biggest move yet in Twitter's efforts to increase revenue through
relationships with other media companies, especially in TV.
-- VentureBeat and CNET

Facebook users are getting tired -- of
Facebook.
The world's No. 1 social network isn't usually shy when it comes
to bragging about its staggering number of active monthly users.
But a new survey finds that 61 percent of Facebook users in the
U.S. admitted to voluntarily taking a break from the site, some
for several weeks. One major reason: "the general sentiment that
Facebook was a major waste of time." When building a startup,
think about engaging customers and users over the long-term. If a
founder isn't careful, today's hot upstart can be tomorrow's
boring giant. -- The New York Times